Politics is religion is politics is religion

2 Representations of Nuclear Explosions

"1945-1998"

Ovekilled

by

Isao Hashimoto

P.S. Thank you Ursa for sharing this!

Alle gode ting skjer samtidig! Kristeva vs. Petryna

Jeg gledet meg fryktelig til å møte Julia Kristeva i Oslo.
Jeg gledet meg fryktelig til å møte Adriana Petryna i NYC.
Jeg må velge. Og velger Petryna!

Men, jeg anbefaller på det sterkeste å delta i Kristeva-dagene på Høgskole i Oslo (yay!:) 24-26. September 2009.
Programmet etc. finner dere her.

Mrs Lazarus & Lady Lazarus. Duffy vs. Plath

The Raising of Lazarus (Carravagio)

******

Mrs Lazarus
by Carol Ann Duffy

I had grieved. I had wept for a night and a day
over my loss, ripped the cloth I was married in
from my breasts, howled, shrieked, clawed
at the burial stones until my hands bled, retched
his name over and over again, dead, dead.

Gone home. Gutted the place. Slept in a single cot,
widow, one empty glove, white femur
in the dust, half. Stuffed dark suits
into black bags, shuffled in a dead man's shoes,
noosed the double knot of a tie around my bare neck,

gaunt nun in the mirror, touching herself. I learnt
the Stations of Bereavement, the icon of my face
in each bleak frame; but all those months
he was going away from me, dwindling
to the shrunk size of a snapshot, going,

going. Till his name was no longer a certain spell
for his face. The last hair on his head
floated out from a book. His scent went from the house.
The will was read. See, he was vanishing
to the small zero held by the gold of my ring.

Then he was gone. Then he was legend, language;
my arm on the arm of the schoolteacher-the shock
of a man's strength under the sleeve of his coat-
along the hedgerows. But I was faithful
for as long as it took. Until he was memory.

So I could stand that evening in the field
in a shawl of fine air, healed, able
to watch the edge of the moon occur to the sky
and a hare thump from a hedge; then notice
the village men running towards me, shouting,

behind them the women and children, barking dogs,
and I knew. I knew by the sly light
on the blacksmith's face, the shrill eyes
of the barmaid, the sudden hands bearing me
into the hot tang of the crowd parting before me.

He lived. I saw the horror on his face.
I heard his mother's crazy song. I breathed
his stench; my bridegroom in his rotting shroud,
moist and dishevelled from the grave's slack chew,
croaking his cuckold name, disinherited, out of his time.

******

Lady Lazarus
by Sylvia Plath

I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it----

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
0 my enemy.
Do I terrify?----

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else,
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.

It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart----
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash ---
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there----

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

American Embassy and Edward Stachura (in Polish)

Byłam dziś w po wizę.

- Kim jestem?
- Tyś jest swoim Ja. Tyś nazwiskiem. Podpisem na papierze. Wizytówką na drzwiach. Inicjałami na sygnecie. Imieniem na kartce kalendarza. Próżnym słowem. Suchą Sylabą. Martwą Literą.
-Niczym więcej?
-Niczym mniej.

Edward Stachura. Fabula Rasa. Pierwsza strona

Sounds & Medicine

"During auscultation, the diaphragm, the small, generally circular disk at the end of the stethoscope, is applied at a series of designated points which are known to offer the best acoustic perspective on the organ, or section of organ beneath. This creates a particular auditory focus on a small part of the body – a single heart valve, for example. Through an intense auditory concentration, the listener then isolates a particular sound, momentarily excluding other noise coming either from the patient’s body or the surrounding environment. Auscultation allows individual sounds to be heard in such a way that they are drawn apart, made the distinct objects of acoustic scrutiny. The length and elasticity of the stethoscope creates distance between the doctor and patient. For Jonathan Sterne (2003), the significance of this separation is perceptual rather than spatial. It makes “distance between knower and known” and reflects the doctor’s disengagement from all but the body sounds of the patient (ibid.: 196). He or she can obtain a kind of detachment, independently evaluating the significance of the heart sounds as empirical signs. The stethoscope allows the doctor to operate in what Sterne describes as “the quiet, rhythmic, sonorous clarity of rationality” (ibid.: 215)." as “the quiet, rhythmic, sonorous clarity of rationality” (ibid.: 215)."

"While patients report negative experiences of feeling “objectified” through auscultation, value judgments should not be attached to objectification per se. Objectification may be understood as a key perceptual strategy in the production of medical knowledge, the conceptualization of the body and disease. Also, as Lewis (2000) and Jackson (1994) point out, objectification can be valuable inorganizing and structuring illness experience and responses to symptoms within biomedicine. The tendency of stethoscopic listeningto objectify patients in negatively experienced ways may, however, be used to debunk the vague myth that hearing is somehow an intrinsically positive, receptive and benevolent sense, creative of inclusive and sympathetic cultural systems. The voices of patients suggest otherwise."

Tom Rice “Beautiful Murmurs”: Stethoscopic Listening and Acoustic Objectification. The Senses and Society, Volume 3, Number 3, November 2008 , pp. 293-306.

Tom Rice describes his project:

This research explores the importance of sound in the context of a London Hospital cardiology unit. It presents a detailed analysis of the acoustic dynamics of day-to-day life in that environment, but also examines the role which sound plays in diagnosis through auscultation (listening with the stethoscope) and cardiac ultrasound or echocardiography. Sound is shown to be integral to the construction and imagination of the body, being strongly implicated in the processes through which clinical diagnosis is performed. The research also draws on illness narratives in detailing the impact which acoustic events, particularly those created during the application of diagnostic technologies, can have on a patient's individual ‘illness experience’. It builds on a growing interest in the senses and sensory experience within the social sciences, and reflects a developing enthusiasm for auditory culture studies which provide critical insights into the deep-seated visual bias through which the social sciences have traditionally constructed and analysed culture. The research galvanizes sound and sensory economy as an important issue in understanding the lived dynamics of public and private space, commenting on how people seek to create, control or resist the particular sounds which they encounter within institutional contexts.

Pictures from the performances of Chiharu Shiota: 1) In Silence, 2007. 2) During Sleep, 2002

Hunted by Thoreau. Cheers!

Train of thought, stream of events

1. Last night I was watching an old episode of Cheers and Diane mentioned and quoted something of Thoreau. (I love her uncontrollable need for intellectual expression in the beer setting. Hilarious).
   
2. I thought - long time no see, Mr. T. So I read some.
3. These days I have an ongoing discussion about John Cage with a friend of mine. I needed one quote so I leafed through his For the Birds (amazing by the way) and opened on a discussion on anarchism and, of course, Thoreau.
4. Today I was combed through some books I got from somebody who needed more space in her room. One of them was Little Women by Louisa M. Alcott. Frankly speaking, I had no idea who she was so I checked and read some stories about her.
5. She turned out to be a daughter of Amos Bronson Alcott - the famous transcendentalist , founder of the utopian Fruitlands (I want to visit this place), member of Transcendental Club. Which means - Thoreau again. Of course, as a little girl Louisa was taking lessons with the master of the Woods.

Also, Louisa M. Alcott turned out to be an author of my favorite (from today) best last words:

"Is it not meningitis?"

Rabbits

This night I ordered this book on "colonization"

Written by John Marsden (although the rest of his book are not apealing to me at all)
illustrated by Shaun Tan (whose much of his work does appeal to me)

Later today I was introducted (through GP, of course:) to poetry of Dame Edith Sitwell, and the first quote I found was:

A great many people now reading and writing would be better employed keeping rabbits

so true, so true

Sopor & the Johnsons

I feel really bad doing this, but there is just how it looks like... (although I think that Sopor's productions are just too unique to be compared with anything. And I think Antony's album, and the rest of his photos in this style, are just too shoddy for my taste)

Cover of the album of Antony & The Johnsons "Another World"

Covers of the album and the book "Les Fleurs du Mal" by brilliant Anna-Varney Cantodea in Sopor Aeternus & The Ensamble of the Shadows

Extraordinary artwork by Anna-Varney and Joachim Luetke
(go to Sopor Aeternus section. In December I ordered album "La Chambre d'Echo", together with the 128-pages book with photos, and I'm still thrilled and enchanted. But of course I was pissed off at the execution - they have destroyed so many brilliant works by using 2 pages for one photo!!! You get this awfull bend in the middle. And some photographs/paintings just do not tolerate it!)

Dancing metaphors

Today I was supposed to watch this movie



Inside I'm Dancing by Damien O'donnell

but my friend showed me this



Epilepsy is Dancing by Antony & The Johnsons

and I just had to dance:)

But there are always at least two directions

By Dimitirs Papaionnou. Music: Konstantinos Bhta

Some things are just one

Crawling bodies by Dimitris Papaioannou

Promenadologie and Spacerologia

Lucius Burckhardt

"We are conducting a new science. It's founded on the idea that the environment is normally not perceived, and if it is, it tends to be in terms of the observer's preconceived ideas. The classic walk goes to the city limits, the hills, the lake, the cliffs. But walkers also traverse parking lots, suburbs, settlements, factories, wastelands, highway intersections on their way to meadows, moors, farms. Coming home, when the walker tells what he has seen he tends to speak only of the forest and the lake, the things he set out to see, the things he read about, had geographical knowledge of, or saw in brochures and pictures. He leaves out the factory and the dump. Strollology deals not only with these prefabricated ideal images, but with the reality they eliminate."

Mariusz Lubomski